Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-09-01

was dt TIC t11llC llO City VI SClltI d
liza. Others of the towns did
vote for the purchase, as did this
city. To say that the Supervisors
from the towns who favored the
purchase were duped by Grand
Rapids into the support of the
measure against the wishes of the
people whom they represented, is
not only false in fact, but is an in
suit to all concerned for which
there is no shadow of justification.
AS to what other localities
do about maintaining bridges,
reference is made to what was
said upon that subject in reply to
Mr.. Lathrop. 1t cannot be
necessary to repeat it, or enlarge
upon it here. In the legislation
of 1865 there was no concealment
or evasion. It's provisions were
simple, unambiguous, easy to
understand. No one misunder-
stood them, except a very few who
desired to do SO, and they not
until after the county had made
the purchase. 1t was reserved to
Mr.. Lathrop and Mr.. Coon, after
the lapse of twenty years, to make
the startling discovery that ex-
press words authorizing the county,
at its option, to condemn and pur-
chase a bridge for the public use,
mean that the county must of
necessity do SO, at the bidding of
certain men" in Grand Rapids
and Centralia! 1t was also re-
served to these distinguished
gentlemen to discover that a
policy freely adopted by the
County with full understanding
of its scope and effect, and &C
quiesced in by it for many years
without objection, was a fraud
thrust upon it by means more dis
honorable than the "shot gun
policy of the highwayman, and
that its obligations thus as
sumed are not at all binding
upon the people! The doctrine
here advanced is the same that is
advocated by those who would re-
pudiate the obligations of the
nations incurred in the great
emergency of WARMTH this
difference: Those who would re-
pudiate the war debt have the
manhood to advocate dishonesty
openly, while the gentlemen from
Marshfeld persist in distorting
and classifying the history of the
County in order to surround their
proposed reputation with a tinge
of FEASIBILITY.
3.-Mr. Coon misstates what
was said by us as to the cost of
maintaining the bridge. We
stated that the cost would not ex-
coed p cents per annum on the
thousand dollars of the "actual
value" Of the taxable property-not
upon the "equalized' value. 1t is
not necessary to tell the average
reader that the former is not usu-
ally less than ta0ice the amount of
the latter But Nj. Coon says it is
not the q cents-the 4Nburden"
that he cares about; it is the un-
just principle of requiring other
portions of the County to contri-
butte to the maintenance of a
bridge in these cities. Well, when
he and others first asked the legis-
lature to interfere with the bridge,
it was a great burden" that they
complained of. When it was
demonstrated that upon the
County, as a whole, the cost was
so tri1ing that the taxpayer
would not suspect it if his atten-
ton was not specially called to it,
then the same gentlemen cared
nothing for cost, it was principle
they were contending for; the
right of "the people to rule" the
spirit that moved the fathers in
1876! Was it love for popular gov
ernment-devotion to the spirit
of '76-that induced Mr.. Lathrop,
Mr.. Coon and others associated
with them to undertake by legisla-
tive enactment to saddle the Wood
County bridge upon these cities
without their consent, and without
a vote of the people upon the
question? They will oblige the
general public, it is safe to say, by
citing that portion of the Declare
ton of independence which they
had especially in mind when they
were thus kindly legislating in the
interests of popular government!
At already appears that it
was not in the direct interests" of
these cities that toll bridge was
chartered, and afterwards bought
by the County and made a free
bridge. 1t was not in the "particu-
lar interests" of these cities that
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